Rogue Squadron: Gundam Style!
by Darth Riven
Summary: When the two best ever sci-fi's collide, this is what you get! Better summary inside. GSGSD cross Star Wars Couples: KxL, AxC, DxM, MxM, SxS rnMirrors X-Wing novels if you've read them. DISCONTINUED
1. Introduction

**Gundam Seed: Rogue Squadron**

_DISCLAIMER: I own neither Star Wars (owned by Lucasarts etc…) or Gundam Seed/Seed Destiny (owned by Bandai). This is a work of fanfiction bringing together the best sci-fi of the East and the West. This disclaimer applies for the whole story. This in no way is meant to detract from the legal rights of the owners of the above two products._

**A brief history of the Galaxy during the Cosmic Era**

The Galactic War started when the Emperor Raww decided to blow up the peaceful planet of Heliopolis, reducing it to nothing but rubble. Thus, Representative Uzumi Nara Athha of Orb, of which Heliopolis was a colony, and Senator Siegel Clyne of PLANT decided that enough was enough and the Rebellion for the Restoration of the Republic began, firstly as a small fledgling movement but with Orb's considerable military technology and the Clyne factions' efforts, the Rebellion soon gained more momentum, as neutral planets flocked to their banner.

In response, Emperor Raww and his puppet chancellor Patrick Zala started construction of the battlestation Cyclops, with the intention of destroying the Rebellion. However, Clyne faction members still within the Empire managed to leak information to the Rebel Alliance and they devised a plan to attack Cyclops.

With the introduction of the Archangel developed in Orb, the Rebel fleet began to gain a tactical advantage over the Empire. The Empire thus began to develop the Dominion-class to match the Archangel. However, Emperor Raww continued to hunt for the Rebellion with his forces, whilst the Dominion was in development.

Kira Yamato, a survivor of Heliopolis joined the Rebellion after his home planet was destroyed. It was at the battle of Victoria where Kira discovered that he could access the power of Seed, something not seen for a long time, since the rise of Emperor Raww who sought to destroy everyone who could access such power. The first skirmish at Victoria, Kira, flying in Rogue Squadron led by Captain Mwu La Fllaga flew his Strike Gundam against Commander Andrew Waltfeld of PLANT, killing him or so it was thought…

The first major battle between the Alliance and the Empire occurred at Josh-A (Yavin 4), where Kira drew on the fledgling power of Seed to prevent the Cyclops Superweapon from wiping out the Rebel Fleet. The Imperial fleet suffered huge losses, as the Cyclops superweapon overloaded and exploded.

The next time the Empire and the Rebellion engaged in a major battle, it was at Orb (Hoth). Here, the Alliance suffered a defeat as Cagalli's father Uzumi sacrificed himself to save the Alliance so that the Archangel could get away. With the death of Siegel Clyne by an assassination team at the hands of Emperor Raww's orders, this left Cagalli Yula Athha and Lacus Clyne as the leaders of the Rebellion. Having seen his father decline into insanity, Athrun Zala who had been betrothed to Lacus Clyne decided to join the Rebellion to save his father from the clutches of Emperor Raww. Under their direction, the Alliance managed to rebuild the Kusugani and steal the Eternal from the Empire. It also turned out that the Clyne faction had managed to rescue Andrew Waltfeld who became second in command of Rogue Squadron.

Word of the construction site of Genesis at the planet Jachin Due reached the ears of the Rebellion. It was decided that the Rebellion had to strike before the superweapon could be finished. Thus, with careful planning, Kira, Athrun and Cagalli would lead the infiltration team onto the Genesis to destroy its protection while Rogue squadron and the Rebellion fleet lead by Kusugani, Archangel and Eternal would destroy Genesis. However, they did not count on the Genesis being combat-ready, even though it could not move, it could fire decimating the Rebellion fleet. And there was also the Dominion which presented trouble for the Rebellion which was beginning to be outgunned. Supreme Commander Admiral Todaka, Lacus Clyne and Captain Ramius of the Archangel hoped that the infiltration team would succeed soon, as they saw the Rebel fleet hit by the Genesis Cannon. The Dominion moved to engage the Archangel in combat and it was then that the brave Captain Mwu La Fllaga died protecting the Archangel from the Lohengrin cannon of the Dominion, allowing Captain Ramius to fire the last shot, decimating the Dominion and killing the Empire's Admiral Azrael. Onboard the battlestation Genesis, Kira, Athrun and Cagalli soon became separated from the rest of the infiltration team, as Kira met the evil Emperor Raww in one-on-one combat and Athrun was confronted by his father who prepared to fire the Genesis cannon to destroy the Rebel fleet once and for all. However, it was then that a Clyne faction spy shot Patrick Zala dead, but it was too late to prevent the firing of the Genesis cannon. All Athrun and Cagalli could do was escape the Genesis station after disabling its shields. Meanwhile, Kira was confronted by the Emperor Raww who discovered to his dismay that Kira could call on the power of Seed. The battle was furious as Emperor Raww drew on his Newtype powers to match Kira's power of Seed. After a long battle, Kira managed to strike a decisive blow, but realised that Genesis would fire its cannon right at where they were as it overloaded, Freedom jumped away at the last minute as the cannon incinerated Emperor Raww ending his reign of terror. Commander Andrew Waltfeld, ace commander of Rogue Squadron fired the shots that destroyed Genesis after Kira and Athrun and Cagalli and the infiltration team escaped.

After the battle of Jachin Due, Athrun and Cagalli, Kira and Lacus started dating, but Kira and Athrun left on the freighter, Saviour to explore the mysteries of Seed, leaving Lacus and Cagalli to hammer together the New Republic. Commander Waltfeld, now leader of Rogue Squadron after Mwu's disappearance at Jachin Due, went on a tour of worlds that were joining the New Republic for the next year after the destruction of Genesis.

Captain Ramius of the Archangel mourned after the war, as she thought that her lover, Mwu had died, but in reality he had been taken by the Empire to the notorious Lodonia research facility…said to be the private prison of Gilbert Dullindal who rose from the ashes of Jachin Due to become the leader of the Empire. After spending six months at Lodonia where his memory was tampered with, Mwu was commissioned as Colonel Neo Lorrnoke of the Empire under Warlord Jibril who had been in charge of waging the war against the Rebellion.

After another three months, Neo was shot down but managed to survive. Captain Ramius of the Archangel personally went down to capture the Empire's leader and was shocked when she found that it was Mwu, unchanged, albeit with a few extra scars. She was able to break through the tampering and make Mwu remember his real past again and they were reunited. However, having been a prisoner of Lodonia, Alliance High Command was unable to put much trust in him, thinking that he would betray the Alliance at the worst time.

It has now been one and a half years since the battle of Jachin Due. The leaders of the Rebellion, Lacus Clyne and Cagalli Yula Athha decided that to make the New Republic truly legitimate they would have to conquer PLANT, the capital world. Supreme Commander Admiral Todaka feels that it is time to reassemble Rogue Squadron for its greatest mission yet, the taking of the Empire's Capital, PLANT. But with Rogue squadron's veterans, Kira and Athrun off exploring the mysteries of Seed, and Dearka and Yzak off training new squadrons, Admiral Todaka gave Commander Waltfeld no choice but to recruit new pilots or transfer/steal pilots from other squadrons. Warlord Jibril also declared independence from the Imperial government forming his own Empire in the Outer Rim.

_Dramatis Personae_

Rogue Squadron Commander Andrew Waltfeld – Rogue Leader/Rogue One – flies the Murasame  
Captain Mwu La Fllaga – Rogue Squadron's Executive Officer – flies the Windam Trainer mobile suit because of his status, dating Murrue Ramius  
Lieutenant Heine Westenfluss – flies the Gouf Ignited  
Flight Officer Shinn Asuka – flies the Destiny  
Flight Officer Lunamaria Hawke – flies the Impulse  
Flight Officer Rey Za Burrel – flies the Providence 2  
Flight Officer Stellar Loussier – flies the Gaia  
Flight Officer Sting Oakley – flies the Chaos  
Flight Officer Auel Neider – flies the Abyss

Other Rebellion Personnel

Kira Yamato – flies Strike Freedom, currently stored on the Saviour, dating Lacus Clyne  
Athrun Zala – flies Infinite Justice, currently stored on the Saviour, dating Cagalli Yula Athha  
Cagalli Yula Athha – Leader of the Rebellion/New Republic along with Lacus Clyne, dating Athrun Zala, sometimes does combat missions in Strike Rouge  
Lacus Clyne – Leader of the Rebellion/New Republic along with Cagalli Yula Athha, dating Kira Yamato  
Miriallia Haww – a freelance journalist and expert spy  
Lieutenant Dearka Elthman – On training squadron duty  
Lieutenant Yzak Joule – On training squadron duty  
Captain Murrue Ramius – Captain of the Archangel, dating Mwu La Fllaga  
Admiral Todaka – Supreme Commander of Rebellion forces  
General Ledonir Kisaka – Head of Alliance Military Intelligence  
Erica Simmons – Head of Alliance R and D  
Brevet Captain Martin Da Costa – Executive Officer of the Eternal, Captain when Lacus Clyne is absent from the ship which is quite often  
Flight Officer Shiho Hahnenfuss – flies in Yzak's squadron

Imperial/Empire Personnel

Director Chancellor Gilbert Dullindal  
Agent Meer Campbell  
Warlord Jibril  
Captain Talia Gladys  
Lieutenant Arthur Trine

Notes: I am powering up the Murasame and the Gouf Ignited to fit in with the fact that my Gundam Rogue Squadron is meant to be the most elite squadron in the galaxy like Rogue Squadron is in the SW galaxy. And right now due to a lack of pilots I am going to have only two flights in my Gundam Rogue squadron for now.

Wingpairs will be decided later.

Couples: Kira x Lacus, Athrun x Cagalli, Shinn x Stellar, Mwu x Murrue so far...more later. Heh!

A/N: Please tell me what you think! And I hope you enjoy this crossover. For those of you that don't know, the brief history covers the SW events of Episode 4,5 and 6. This story will mirror the Bantam era of Star Wars novels (post ROTJ) which is the best era of SW novels.

Preview of Chapter 1

You're good Shinn, but you're no Kira Yamato. - recognise this anyone?


	2. Rogue Squadron Chapter 1

**Rogue Squadron – Chapter 1**

**Freedom overide, sephiroth12285, The Baka Brigade, Chi no Enjeru, Dust-in:** _Thanks for reviewing the non-chapter. Here's the first chapter. Hope you enjoy it_

**Koronis:** _Sorry you feel that way...yeah technology will have to be adapted and such, but if you read this I hope you come to enjoy it._

**Author's Note: Since Revenge of the Sith has come out, I decided to release this, even though I haven't finished writing my other GSD fanfic yet (unfortunately I'm having a case of writer's block with the next chapter of "The Subject"). Anyways, I hope you enjoy this fic and please review. Any help would be appreciated.**

_You're good Shinn_, _but you're no Kira Yamato._ Shinn Asuka's cheeks still burned at the memory of Commander Waltfeld's evaluation of his last simulation exercise. The line had been a simple comment, not meant to be cruel nor delivered that way, but it cut deep into Shinn. _I've never tried to suggest that I'm _that _good of a pilot_.

He shook his head, trying to concentrate. _No, you just wanted everyone to realise that you were as good as he was_. Reaching out he inserted the card containing his suit's statistics into the simulator. "Red One is ready to go," he commed, as the activation screen came up on the simulator screen. All around him, the simulated controls came alive and flashed to life, "Power is at full, ready to launch."

His wingman, Rey Za Burrel, reported start-up success, "Red Two is operational."

Red Three and Red Four cheacked in, then the external screens came alive projecting an empty starfield. Nav data from the central computer came through onto Shinn's main computer. He punched a button sending the same coordinates out to the other pilots in Red Flight. "Go to light speed and rendezvous on the freighter."

As Shinn's Destiny Gundam engaged its hyperdrive, the stars elongated themselves into white cylinders, then snapped back into pinpoints and began to revolve slowly, transforming themselves into a tunnel of white light. Shinn fought the urge to compensate for the roll, In space, and especially in hyperspace, up and down were relative. How his ship moved through hyperspace didn't really matter – as long as it remained on the course the computer had calculated and had attained sufficient velocity before entering hyperspace, he'd arrive intact.

_Flying into a black hole would actually make this run easier_. Every pilot dreaded this scenario, based off an Imperial attack on evacuation ships at Orb. While the freighter went around rescuing the evacuees, an Imperial frigate danced around the system, dumping out Zakus or the like, and the heavier Babi units to do as much damage as they could. The Babi units, with full loads of missiles, could do a _lot _of damage. All the pilots called this scenario the _Requiem_ scenario. The Imperials would normally only deploy four Zakus and a half-dozen Babis but it would do so in a pattern that made it all but impossible for the pilots to save the medical freighter. The freighter was just one big target, and the Babi pilots had no trouble unloading all their missiles into it. What made it even harder was that depending on the random program or the identity of the pilots flying the other side in the simulators, the enemy could dump Zakus, Windams, Daggers or Goufs and sometimes even the Rick-Doms.

The stellar pinpoints elongated again as the mobile suits came out of hyperspace. Off to the port side, Shinn saw the medical freighter. Moments later his sensors reported that the other mobile suits had arrived and the freighter had started to pick up the evacuees. The other pilots checked in and the first shuttle off the medical freighter began to dock the first evacuees.

"Red One, this is Red Four."

"Go ahead, Four."

"By the _book_, or are we doing something fancy?"

Shinn hesitated before answering. By _Book_, Stellar had referred to the general wisdom about the scenario. It stated that one pilot should play _fleethund_ and race out to engage the first flight while the other three mobile suits stayed in close to provide backup. As long as the other three mobile suits stayed home, it appeared, the enemy frigate would only drop mobile suits off at a considerable distance from the evacuees. When they didn't, it got bolder and the scenario became very bloody.

The problem with going by the book was that it wasn't a very good strategy. It meant that one pilot had to deal with five enemy mobile suits – two combat mobile suits and three Babis all by him or herself and then turn around an engage five more enemies. Even with them coming in waves, the chances of being able to succeed against those odds were slim.

Doing it any other way was disastrous.

"By the book. Keep the home fires burning and pick up after me."

"Done. Good luck," Stellar's voice came over the flight's tactical channel.

"Thanks." Shinn reached up with his hand and pressed it against the cellphone tat was in his flight suit pocket. Though he could barely feel it through his gloves and the thick material of his flight suit, the familiar sensation of the metal resting against his heart made him concentrate even harder. _It was the only thing I have left of you, Mayu, I hope that you can give me strength to make sure a tragedy like Orb never happens again._

Winning this scenario would take some deft flying and a considerable amount of luck.

The first of the evacuees were moving onto the medical freighter now, prompting Shinn to begin his final check. He'd analysed the scenario over in his mind many times. He had spent a lot of time analysing the attack vectors and flight styles of the program. While different pilots flew the enemy half of the simulators sometimes, the performance of the enemy mobile suits dictated their performance to an extent. The sensors beeped as the Imperial frigate's arrival. "Great, eleven ks' aft." Pulling the stick around to the right, Shinn brought the Destiny into a wide turn. At the end of it he punched the throttle up to full power, the Destiny racing off towards the enemy. "Red One engaging."

Auel's voice came over excited and strong through the radio, "Send them back to their makers."

"I'll do my best, Red Three." Shinn smiled and waved with the Destiny as he flew back through the Alliance formation and out towards the Imperial frigate. The sensor screen announced the appearance of three Babis and then the he saw that a Zaku and a Windam had also appeared.

Shinn activated his phase shift armour as he raised his beam rifle and his aiming lens popped down as he brought the Zaku into his sight. _Good, looks like three ks between the Babis and the other suits._ Shinn took a deep breath, and felt the cellphone near his heart and then his right hand on the piloting stick and prepared to fire. At two ks the sensor display painted a yellow box around the Zaku. The box went green as the fighter's image locked into the HUD's targeting cross and the computer indicated it was time to fire. Shinn hit the firing button firing three shots from the beam rifle towards the Zaku.

The first beam missed but the second and third blasted through the head and the cockpit of the Zaku. The Zaku lurched and then blew up into an expanding ball of incandescent pink gas.

Shinn kicked the Destiny up into a ninety-degree snap-roll and sliced through the centre of the explosion. Beam rifle fire from the Windam forced him to bring up his shield to block, making it impossible for him to get a good visual line on the Windam. The sensor screen showed no lock, but Shinn hurried a shot anyway, seeing it glance off the Windams side as it flashed past and continued on in at the medical freighter and the evacuees.

_Time to write a new chapter for the _book _in the _Requiem _scenario_. Shinn switched to his beam boomerangs. The HUD changed to a larger box and the sensor screen display changed to adjust to the new weapon settings.

"Red One, your velocity is down to one percent. Do you need help?" Rey's voice, concerned, came over the comm.

"Negative, Red One."

"Shinn, what are you doing?"

"Making the _book_ a short story." _I hope_.

The HUD went red and Shinn fired one of the beam boomerangs. His eyes acquired target two. The HUD went flashed green, then yellow and then red and Shinn launched his second beam boomerang.

Numbers scrolled away to zero as the beam boomerangs streaked in on their targets. Two ks away the first beam boomerang hit, shredding the first Babi. Seconds later the second beam boomerang hit its target. A pink novalike explosion lit the simulator's cockpit, then melted into the blackness of space.

His eyes focused on the firing lens as he acquired the third target as the first beam boomerang returned to him. Even as it came back he knew that the rate of closure between the Babi and his Destiny would make the last beam boomerang shot all but impossible. Shinn knew he had to use his beam rifle, as he throttled up again, the third Babi sailed past. He brought his mobile suit around and switched back to beam rifle targeting and climbed up on the Babi's stern.

The Babi's pilot tried to evade him. He juked the suit to the left, then started a long turn to the right, but Shinn was of no mind to let this pilot go, even though it was just a simulation. He cut his speed, which kept the Babi in front of him, then followed it in its turn As he levelled out again on its tail, he triggered two beam rifle bursts and the sensor screen reported some hull damage.

The Babi came up in a roll to the right and Shinn followed this manoeuvre. Had he continued to fly level, the Destiny's beam rifle would have passed on either side of the Babi, giving the Babi a few more seconds of life. Keeping the Babi centred in his firing kens, Shinn fired twice more and the Babi disintegrated before him.

Pushing his throttle back to full, Shinn scanned for the Windam he'd missed. He found it two ks out and going in towards the evacuees. He also found five more enemy suits coming in from the other side of the medical freighter, eighteen ks away. _Damn, the Babi took more time than I had to give it._

He brought the beam boomerang targeting program back up and locked in on the Windam. The HUD seemed to take forever before it went red and acquired a lock. Shinn fired and watched it blast through the Windam and then turned his attention to the new enemy mobile suits.

"Red One, do you want us to engage?"

Shinn shook his head as sweat dripped down his forehead. "Negative Two. The frigate is stioll here and could dump anoterh flight." He sighed. "Move to intercept the Zaku and Windam, but don't go beyond aa k from the evacuees."

"On it," the reply came quickly.

_Good, they can tie the Windam and Zaku up while I dust these Babis._ Shinn studied the nav data given by the computer. The medical freighter, the Babis and the Destiny formed a shrinking triangle. If he flew directly at the Babis he would end up flying in an arc, which would take more time than he had and let them get close enough to launch their missiles at the evacuees. That would be les than useless as far as he was concerned. He plotted an intercept course six ks out from the Evacuees. Steering towards the intercept point, Shinn saw that he'd have just over a minute to deal with the Babis before they were in firing range on the evacuees. _Not enough time_.

Flicking a few switches, Shinn directed energy from phase shift armour into the engines. It took the acceleration compensator a second to cycle up, so the Destiny's burst of speed pushed Shinn back into the padding of his command seat. _This had better work_.

"Red One, the Imperial frigate has hyped. Are we released to engage the enemy?"

"Affirmative, Three. Go get them." Shinn frowned for a second, knowing that his fellow pilots would make short work of the enemy Windam and Zaku. They would deny him a clean sweep, but he'd willingly trade two enemy mobile suits for saving the evacuees. _Commander Waltfeld_ _might have gotten all of them himself in his Murasame, but then he was a veteran of Jachin Due and blew up the Genesis battlestation. _

He mentally took note of the position of the three Babis as the computer marked them as targets. The range to intercept was 3ks and he had added thirty seconds to his fighting time. He acquired the first Babi and the targeting lens showed him to be coming in at a forty-five degree angle to the flight path of his target which meant he was way off target. Shinn quickly punched the generator back into recharging his phase shift armour, then pulled even more energy from his engines and shunted it into recharging weapons and shields.

The resource redirection brought his speed back down. Shinn pulled back his stick, easing the Destiny into a tun that brought him head-on into the Babis. Tapping the stick to the left, he centered the targeting box on the first of the Babis.

The HUD started yellow, then quickly went red. He fired his beam boomerang. As he acquired the next target the HUD started red and he threw the second beam boomerang. He acquired the last Babi but the sensors screeched and Shinn looked down on his display. He saw that Green Two had been destroyed.

"Green Two, what happened."

"He's gone. One."

"A fighter got him?"

"No time to chat…" The comm. call from Stellar in Red Four ended in a hiss of static.

"Auel?"

"Got one, Shinn, but his last Windam is good."

"Hang on."

"Don't worry, I'll beat him."

Shinn acquired the last Babi and but the sensors indicated that the last Babi had already shot past the intercept point and was bearing in on the evacuees. The pilot had the wide-bodied craft slowing spinning, making it hard to get a lock with the long-ranged beam boomerangs. The medical freighter, being as big as it was, would present large enough a target that even a rolling mobile suit could get a lock on it.

_And once he has that lock, the _medical freighter _is so much space junk._ Shinn switched back to his beam rifle as the beam boomerangs returned. He pushed the Destiny forward, and even though two ks separated them, he triggered a couple of shots. He knew that his chances of hitting were not good at that range but the light from the bolts would shoot past the Babi and give the pilot something to think about. _And I want him thinking about me, not the evacuees sitting there ready to be obliterated._

Shinn redirected all power back into the engines and shot forward. Two more beam rilfe bursts caused the Babi to shy a bit, but it had pushed into target-acquisition range. The ship's roll began to slow as the pilot fixated on his target, then as Shinn brought his beam rifle to bear, the Babi jinked away and cut away to port.

The Orban's eyes narrowed. _Heine has got to be flying that thing. He thinks it's payback time. _The other pilot had flown a Jachin Due though in a different squadron and was one of the best, but Shinn knew that he was better. _He's going to kill the medical freighter and I'll never hear the end of it._ _Unless…_

Shinn pulled away his phase-shift armour and followed Heine through a barrel roll, he keep the throttle full forward. As they levelled out again Shinn triggered a snap shot at the Babi it caught a piece of the Babi near the engines, but Heine dove beneath the Destiny's line of fire. _Here we go!_

Shinn shoved his stick forward to follow the babi's dive, but because his rate of speed was a good twenty percent faster than that of the Babi, the Destiny moved into a broad loop. By the time Shinn inverted to finish the turn off, Heine's Babi came back up and banked in on the Destiny's tail.

Before the Babi could unload a missile or two into his unshielded back, Shinn broke the Destiny hard to port and carved across the Babi's line of fire. _Basic manoeuvre with a basic response._ Without even glancing at his instruments and paying no attention to the sensor alarms, Shinn cut engine power back into phase shift armour. _One more second._

Heine's response to Shinn's break had been a reverse throttle hop. By bringing his Babi up into a steep climb, then rolling out in the direction of the turn, Heine had managed to stay inside the arc of the Destiny's turn. AS the Babi levelled off it closed very quickly with the Destiny – _too close for a missile lock, but not a laser shot._ The Babi shrieked in at the Destiny. Collision warning alarms wailed. Shinn could feel Heine's excitement as the Destiny loomed larger. He knew that the Babi would snap off a quick beam burst, angry at having overshot the Destiny, but happy to smoke Shinn _before_ taking down the evacuees.

The Destiny's pilot hit a switch and the beam boomerang came out as Shinn pounced. The Phase Shift armour had no trouble absorbing the Babi's twin beam rifle bursts. Had the Babi used its heavy missiles, the Phase Shift armour could even have handled all the damage that they could do, though that would have been enough to drain phase shift armour to empty. The Babi was caught by the unexpected beam boomerang at close range and exploded in a nova of pink gas. The feedback from the explosion managed to drain a lot of power from the phase shift armour but the Destiny was undamaged.

"Red Three did you copy that?"

Shinn got no response. He looked down at his sensor screen. _Bakka_. Shinn flipped the phase shift armour to cover both front and back. He looked harder as the computer magnified the image of the evacuees.

The image of the lone Windam making a strafing run on the medical freighter appeared on Shinn's screen. The clumsy little craft skittered along over the medical freighter's surface, easily dodging the return fire. _That's seriously gutsy for a Windam._ Shinn smiled. _Or arrogant, and time to make him pay for that arrogance. _

Shinn brought his beam boomerang targeting lens up and locked on to the Windam. It tried to break the lock, but CIWS fire from the freighter boxed it in. Shinn's HUD went red and he fired the beam boomerang. "Scratch one Windam."

The beam boomerang shot straight in at the Windam but the pilot broke hard to port and away, causing the boomerang to overshoot the target. _Nice flying!_ Shinn brought the Destiny over and started down to loop in behind the Windam, but as he did so, the Windam vanished from his forward screen and reappeared in his aft arc. Yanking the stick hard to the right and pulling it back, Shinn wrestled the Destiny up and to starboard, then inverted and rolled out to the left. A beam rifle shot jolted a tremor through the simulator couch. Shinn recharged the phase shift armour with energy from his beam rifle. Jinking the Destiny right and left, he avoided the beam rifle shots coming in from the Windam but they all came far closer than he liked.

He knew that Heine had been in the Babi and Heine was the only pilot in the unit who could have stayed with him, so far. _Except for our leader._ Shinn smiled broadly. _Coming to see how good I really am, Commander Waltfeld? Let me give you a clinic_. A snap-roll brought the Destiny up on its left. Pulling back on the stick yanked the Destiny away from the original line of flight. The Windam stayed with him, then tightened up on the arc to close the distance. Shinn then rolled another ninety degrees and continued the turn into a dive. Throttling back, Shinn hung in the dive for three seconds, then hauled back hard on the stick and cruised up into the Windam's aft.

The Destiny's beam bursts missed wide to the right as the Windam cut to the left. Shinn keciekd his speed up to full and broke with the Windam. He let the Destiny rise above the plane of the break, and then put the fighter through a twisting roll that ate up enough time to bring him again into the Windam's rear. The Windam snapped to the right and Shinn looped out left.

He watched the sensors display the shrinking distance as it reached one and a helf ks and then slowed. _Fine, you want to go nose to nose? I've got phase-shift and you don't_ If Commander Waltfeld wanted to commit virtual suicide, Shinn was happy to oblige him. He tugged the stick back to his sternum and rolled out in an inversion loop.

The two mobile suits closed swiftly. Shinn centred his foe in the targeting lens and waited for a dead shot. Without phase-shift the Windam would die with one burst and Shinn wanted the kill to be clean. His HUD flicked red as the Windam juked and out of the centre, then locked freen as they closed.

The Windam started firing at maximum range and scored hits. At that distance the beams did no real damage against the phase-shift armour, prompting Shinn to wonder why Andrew would be wasting the energy. Then, realisation dawned. _The bright bursts on the phase-shift are nothing but distraction to my targeting! I better kill him now!_

Shinn tightened down on the trigger button sending beam bursts at the closing Windam. He couldn't tell if he had hit anything. Lights flahed in the cockpit and the computer started screeching furiously. Shinn's phase-shift was down and the weapons had run out of power and sensors were running on minimum power with all the available power being used by engines.

Shinn was worried, as he was stuck in space without phase shift armour and weapons he was a sitting duck. He didn't know where the Windam had gone it was outside visual range and the short-range scanners. He knew that the Windam pilot would take down the evacuees before coming back to finish Shinn off.

Suddenly, the starfield went black and the simulator pod hissed and it cracked open. Shinn's card popped out as the computer finished processing the results. The canopy lifted up and the sound of laughter filled the cockpit. Shinn almost flicked the blast shield down on his helmet to prevent his three friends from seeing his embarrassed blush. _Nope, might as well take my punishment_. He stood and doffed his helmet, then shook his head, "At least it's over."

Stellar clapped a hand on his shoulder, "Such modesty Shinn, it's so not you."

"Huh?"

Rey came up next to him and smiled, "You won the scenario." The others came up and congratulated him.

"What?"

"You had nine kills. Heine won't be happy," Auel said, beaming because he thought that Heine was one very arrogant jerk.

"Thanks for the good news, Auel, but I still got killed in there." Shinn hopped out of the simulator. "The pilot who got you three – Commander Waltfeld – he got me, too."

Rey shrugged, "He's piloted much longer than we have, so it's not really a surprise that he got us. But are you certain you got killed?"

Shinn frowned, thinking back to the simulator. "I don't think I got the mission end message."

"Clearly you have too little experience of dying in these simulators because you'd know if you did," Stellar laughed lightly. "He may have hit you, Shinn, but he didn't kill you. You survived and won."

Shinn blinked, then smiled. "And I got Heine before he got the evacuees. I'll take that."

"As well you should." A dirty blonde haired man with two scars crossing under his left eye shouldered his way through Auel and Rey. "You're an exceptionally good pilot.

"Thank you, sir."

The man offered Shinn his hand. "Thought I had you, but when you shot out my engines, your beam boomerang caught up with me. Nice job."

Shinn shook the man's hand hesitantly. The man wore a black uniform with no name or rank insignia on it, though it did have Orb, Mendel and Jachin Due battle tabs sewn onto the left sleeve. "You're very good in a Windam."

"Nice of you to say, Mr. Asuka – I'm a bit rusty but I really enjoyed this run." He released Shinn's hand. "Next time I'll give you more of a fight."

A woman wearing a Lieutenant's uniform touched the Windam pilot on arm. "Admiral Todaka will see you now, sir. If you would please follow me."

The Windam pilot nodded to his fellow pilots. "Good piloting, all of you. Congratulations on winning the scenario."

Shinn stared at the man's retreating back. "I thought Commander Waltfeld was in the Windam. I mean it had to be someone as good as him to get you three."

Auel laughed, "Apparently then, he is that good."

"Sure but _who_ is he? He's not Kira Yamato or Athrun Zala obviously, nor is he Dearka Elthman or Yzak Jule, but he was at Orb, Mendel and survived Jachin Due."

Stellar's eyes lit up. "You noticed that the Jachin Due tab has a black dot in the middle – he was in the run against Genesis."

Auel looped his right arm around Shinn's shoulder and motioned for the other pilots to follow. "So, Shinn, you remember that you have to make good on all those dinner and drinks promises he made to talk us into helping him win. Right guys?"

Rey and Stellar laughed, "Absolutely, let's go. The four pilots went off down the hallway towards the mess hall where Shinn would be paying for dinner and drinks, happy that they were together and piloting. Only Shinn, in the back of his mind was worried. _That pilot shot the three of them and disabled me with a Windam. And he said that he was a bit rusty. He is decidedly dangerous. I have to become better, so that there will be no more tragedies like Mayu's._


	3. Rogue Squadron Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Rogue Squadron

_A/N: Yay! Chapter 2 up! Sorry it's been ready for a while but with the IE crash problem I haven't been able to upload...plus it is the middle of exams rite now. Anyways just a change to keep up with the latest GSD stuff (Rey's unit will be called Legend)._

**sephiroth12285, IMBSA: Thanks for the reviews.**

**Freedom Overide: Kira and Athrun will show up later...I promise**

**Easy-Company-506/101: Actually, Fukada-san (director of GS, GSD) said in an interview that Mwu and Raww were the last two Newtypes so they do exist in CE.**

**Antilles: Actually there are only two flights (eight)right now...and I know Corran's and Shinn's character quite well, I've read I,Jedi like 20 times.**

**Anyways, enjoy this chapter and remember to review**

Andrew Waltfeld saluted Admiral Todaka and held the salute until the Orban Admiral returned it. "Thank you for seeing me sir."

"It is always my pleasure to see you, Commander Waltfeld," he glanced towards the other man in the room, "General Kisaka and I were just discussing the impact of having Rogue Squadron back in the fleet. He feels that you are ready to be declared operational despite the lack of pilots, the roster itself is impressive."

The brown-haired pilot nodded. "Yes, sir. I wanted to speak to you about the roster, if I could, sir." Andy saw General Kisaka's look change to one of deep reflection. "There have been some changes made without my input."

Admiral Todaka replied, "yes, I'm aware of that, but Lieutenant's Joule and Elthman are needed to bring new training squadrons along and Kira and Athrun, are exploring the mysteries of SEED, so most of the veterans are busy with other assignments."

Andy bit back a sharp comment, before he spoke again, "Admiral, I've spent a good deal of the time since the Emperor died touring worlds new to the Alliance doing political work, but the diplomatic service has made us look invincible, whereas I know that we aren't."

"Of course not. Even if that is what is suggested by the Diplomatic Corps, you have to understand that there is always grandstanding in politics, without any exaggeration it wouldn't be very effective," the Admiral replied.

"As an elite squadron, I feel that we have a very big need for an Executive Officer, who can train up my pilots so that they can be as close to being what the Diplomatic Corps suggest that they are," Andy replied. Admiral Todaka looked over at General Kisaka who nodded and said, "Who do you have in mind then?"

"I'd like to have Captain Mwu La Fllaga as my executive officer," Andy looked over at General Kisaka and waited for his reaction, as head of Intelligence, he knew all about Mwu's case.

"I think that you are taking a big risk here, Captain La Fllaga could betray us at any time," General Kisaka replied. "We don't really know what happened to him after Jachin Due, the Empire did mess with his mind and the effects may not have all shown themselves yet."

"What I know is that we left him there, we abandoned him when he wasn't dead," Andrew argued, "And Captain Ramius, who knows him best, says that he won't betray us. And I have the fullest confidence in him and Kira and Athrun say the same thing too, if they were here."

"Yes, but he was moved to Lodonia. Do you know what the 'Extended' program is at Lodonia? They produce the equivalent of human time-bombs. You never know when a person who has spent time at Lodonia will betray you," General Kisaka, head of Alliance Intelligence warned.

"That is mere speculation. What I know is that Mwu piloted for the Alliance since before I joined, he was there at the beginning, at Heliopolis, even before the Alliance became formalised. He and Kira saved the Archangel numerous times, when that was our only forces. He took a blast head-on from Dominion's Lohengrin cannon to save the Archangel at Jachin Due. And you think that he hasn't shown enough devotion to the Alliance?" Andy argued, taking deep breaths trying to force himself to be calm. "We found him again, after six months, amnesiac but otherwise all right, even the medical scans cleared him."

"The General is correct, there is a substantial risk there, but the fact is that we don't have many resources to spare, and this way we don't have to take another experienced pilot from another squadron off active duty. As long as he is willing to adhere to several restrictions, I personally am okay with Captain La Fllaga being Rogue Squadron's Executive Officer, isn't that right General?" The Admiral spoke, his tone implying that the general would have no choice but to agree.

The Admiral continued, "The conditions will be as follows, one; he is to accompanied by a security officer or a member of the squadron at all times. Secondly, all correspondence he has will be open to examination. In live training exercises, he will fly a powered-down Windam mobile suit which can be controlled remotely." He gestured to his aide, "Find Captain La Fllaga and bring him here," he turned to Andy, "Where is he currently?"

Andy looked downwards at the floor, trying to avert the gaze of General Kisaka, "He's down at the simulator complex."

"Isn't that rather dangerous and premature?" General Kisaka asked, in a cold voice.

Admiral Todaka ushered his aide out the door, "You'll find him in the simulator complex. Bring him here immediately." Admiral Todaka turned towards Commander Waltfeld, "the simulator complex? Why?"

"It was Asuka's turn leading the _Requiem_ rescue scenario. Mwu's one of the best pilots around, no matter what you say, so I had him fly up against Shinn."

Admiral Todaka's face hardened, "You've taken certain liberties with this situation already, it seems, Commander."

"Yes sir, but nothing that isn't necessary to make my pilots the best. I'm being prudent in this, I think," Andy replied as he sipped some of his signature coffee.

General Kisaka replied, "What's done is done. Now having Captain La Fllaga fly today would have made the scenario much more difficult right?"

A small smile crept back onto Andy's face, as he nodded, "Yes, sir, exactly what I wanted. Asuka is very good, the trio of pilots flying on his side in the exercise aren't bad either. Overall, I think that Asuka or Lieutenant Westenfluss are the best pilots in the whole group. Heine can be quite smothering and this annoys Asuka, who on the other hand is impatient. That will get him killed in combat, and the only way to make him see is by having someone shoot him down in practice. Mwu can do that."

The door to Todaka's office opened and his female aide led Mwu into the room. "Admiral, this is Captain La Fllaga."

Mwu saluted, "Reporting as ordered, sir."

"At ease, Captain," the Admiral replied. As Mwu relaxed, Andy gave him a small reassuring smile, to let him know that the meeting had hopefully gone well.

The Admiral eased himself out of his chair. "Captain La Fllaga, here are the restrictions that I and General Kisaka wish to impose on you, if you wish to return to active duty." The Admiral continued as he listed the restrictions, "you realise that you will have no privacy and freedom if you accept these conditions. So, do you accept?"

"I do, sir," Mwu replied, feeling happy that he would soon be on active duty again.

"I'd like to know why," the question was aimed at Mwu, from the General Kisaka.

"It's my duty, General and my life. I chose to join the Archangel before the Alliance became formalised. I endured through the battles at Josh-A and Orb. I followed orders and saved the Archangel when it was almost destroyed by the Dominion at Jachin Due. I did all those things because that's what I agreed to do when I chose ton join the Rebellion." He glanced downwards, "Besides, even the worst you can do to me will still be better than my time with those disgusting Imperials."

General Kisaka nodded, "well I am satisfied that this arrangement could work, don't you think so, Admiral Todaka?"

"Yes, General, I am signing orders to make Captain La Fllaga the Executive Officer for Rogue Squadron," Admiral Todaka said, "But Commander Waltfeld,…I expect to be informed about any irregularities or problems with your squadron. You will be assigned a military droid to help you make out reports. Use it."

"But, sir wouldn't the droid be more useful somewhere else?" Andy asked.

"No, not really, those decisions are made by those in charge, not those that have refused promotions. You're dismissed, the both of you. I imagine that you have things to celebrate."

"Yes, sir," the reply came from both pilots.

"One last thing," General Kisaka spoke, "What did you think about the pilots in the _Requiem_ scenario?"

Andy looked over at his XO, "Did you get Asuka?"

Mwu gave a small wry smile, "Oh, I hit the Destiny, but not as much of it as I would have liked." Smiling fully, he added, "Admiral, if the people I flew against are representative of the rest of the people we have to work with. Rogue Squadron should be up and running within a couple of months and the scourge of the Empire not very much longer after that, they could be as good as the squadron was back in the War."

Mwu and Andy exited the room. As soon as the door was closed the Admiral turned to General Kisaka, "Well…did I cover up well enough, they won't know right?"

"You did well, Admiral. I have full confidence in Rogue Squadron," he replied.

Andy and Mwu made their way down to the briefing amphitheatre, where the successful candidates would be gathered. As they entered they saw that several seats were assembled in rows from the back. The other half of the room was filled with tables, a dais, a lectern and a holoprojector. Andy took his place at the lectern with Mwu standing behind him.

Shinn had taken a seat by himself at the end of the row, away from the other pilots. Auel, Stellar and Rey sat together, near Shinn but not quite next to him. Even though she had attempted to make friends with him, Stellar could feel that Shinn was for the lack of a better word, haunted. She had seen it before with the many Orbans in the fleet, some of them just seemed to be emotionally dead, especially those without family. She saw that there were three other pilots there as well, who she didn't know yet, but one wore a Lieutenant's insignia.

Andy began to speak, "Well I'd like to congratulate you on surviving the initial culling process. We had many candidates but you were the best. We'd actually hoped for twelve, but only the seven of you were good enough. So we will have two flights instead of three."

Andy glanced down at his datapad for a moment, "Before I get into the specifics, I should introduce myself. I'm Commander Andrew Waltfeld, I served in the Imperial Army until Victoria after which I defected to the Alliance. Since then I've flown in missions for the Rebellion and I was at Jachin Due, though I captained the Eternal back then, I've since done many pilot hours. Behind me is your Executive Officer, Captain Mwu La Fllaga. He's been with the Rebellion since day one, and is one of the best pilots out there. He's an expert on Imperial Mobile Suits, especially those developed by OMNI."

Shinn looked up in surprise, _so this pilot is impressive and skilled too_. Andy continued, "We'll be spearheading the push towards PLANT headquarters, so this will be a dangerous job, but I'm sure we will be up to any mission headquarters provides us with."

"Now for wingpair assignments I'll hand over to Captain La Fllaga," Andy said as he stepped down from the lectern and handed over to his XO.

"Commander Waltfeld will be Rogue Leader and Rogue One. He'll take both designations to limit confusion," Mwu said, as he opened his datapad. "Flight Officer Hawke you'll be on his wing, as Rogue Two."

Lunamaria nodded, "it is an honour to fly on your wing, Commander."

"Rogue Three will be Flight Officer Neider, Rogue Four, flight Officer Za Burrel," Mwu continued. Both of them looked content with the wingpair assignment, they had gotten along quite well, even though they were so opposite in character.

"Rogue Five will be Lieutenant Westenfluss, who will lead Two Flight, on his wing will be Flight Officer Oakley. Rogues Seven and Eight are Flight Officer Asuka and Flight Officer Loussier. Okay, that's it folks," Mwu said as he finished and shut down his datapad. He saw that Shinn had raised his hand, "Yes, Flight Officer Asuka, what's your question?"

"But won't you be flying, Captain?" Shinn asked.

"Oh, umm…I won't be flying in combat, as XO, I have to train you guys up to your best, but while you guys are flying, I'll be monitoring your progress," Mwu replied, not sure if that excuse did enough to cover up the real reason.

Shinn carefully listened to Mwu's words. He felt that Mwu's tone certainly inflected an intention to not talk about it anymore in public, at the very least. But still he thought to himself, _he's one hell of a pilot, and, having him not fly doesn't make sense. There has to be something else, the monitoring job is usually done by someone on the carrier._ But he dropped the subject in deference to his superior's wishes.

Mwu and Andy stood up and saluted, and walked out of the briefing amphitheatre. The pilots stood and returned salute. After they had exited, Stellar came over to Shinn and said, "Shinn, we're going to be wingmates, I hope that we can work well together."

Athrun and Kira stood outside the simple mud hovel, as they looked inside they saw the sparse furniture which adorned the dwelling. They entered through the threshold of the door and looked around. Cobwebs were all over the ceiling corners, showing that no one had lived here for a while.

They began to look through the things in the bare rooms of the dwelling. But again, there was nothing of use, the Empire's hunters had been thorough, and all they could really gather were snippets of information from people who had claimed to have seen the miracles of SEED. There were a few personal items of interest that they took, but there was nothing revealing about the powers of SEED. Slightly dejected, Athrun and Kira went back to the _Saviour_ and blasted back off into space, towards their next destination.

Lacus Clyne and Cagalli Yula Athha sat together at the High Council meeting. Representatives from other planets in the Alliance sat across from their position. They debated the merits of the new push towards PLANT headquarters. Most of the Representatives were in favour of the move that would in most people's eyes give their government legitimacy. However, most of their holdings were situated far from PLANT headquarters, and the first step would be to establish a base close to PLANT headquarters, and be able to defend it against the Empire.

A number of suggestions were floated, but they decided that December City would be the ideal base, it was away from the main strength of the Empire, but close enough to be threatening and be able to be used as a base. The meeting concluded as the delegates filed out of the meeting room, leaving Lacus and Cagalli together. Cagalli heaved a sigh of relief and said, "Whew! That was a hard meeting, I wonder how the boys are going, Lacus."

"I'm sure they're fine," Lacus replied, "the boys can take care of themselves, and they do have their Gundams with them."

Captain Murrue Ramius felt someone's hands close over her eyes. "Guess who?" a very familiar voice, one she hadn't heard happy for a long time resonated in here ears. Involuntarily she giggled and replied, "It isn't Mwu is it?"

"Awww! How did you guess?" he replied, a wide grin on his face. To her it seemed as if his eyes had regained the spark that they had been missing for a long time. She pulled him in towards her hands clasping his face, closing her eyes, she kissed him, fully and deeply. He let his lips caress hers, as their tongues intertwined. It wasn't until they were fully into the kiss that they realised that one of the Alliance's security personnel had just opened the door to look in.

Hastily, they broke away from each other, assuming her most vicious voice, Murrue barked at the officer, "Ensign, what are you doing? Don't you know how to knock before you enter? Get out. This is private."

"Hasn't the Captain explained to you yet?" the Ensign replied, "he has to be supervised by Security at all times."

"Look here, Ensign, I'll keep him out of trouble, now you will leave. This is an order. Take it up with your superior officer if you need to," Murrue snapped, "If you have to be nearby at least have the decency to stand outside the door or something." The Ensign saluted before complying with her order.

"Murrue, you didn't have to be so harsh, he was just doing his job," Mwu said, sheepishly. "Well about this thing, I'm back on active duty but the Admiral decided to impose some harsh conditions."

"Well I expressly forbid any Security personnel from coming in here, while we're together. I almost lost you once, and I intend to never let you go again," Murrue replied with mock seriousness. "But I'm serious about the first part," she added, as Mwu laughed at her expression.

"Perhaps the Security man and I can come to some understanding." Mwu said. Both of them laughed at the apparent absurdity of that proposition.

"But we should celebrate, you got your wings back, I made some cake," Murrue said as she bought out the cake she had made, and sliced it and made to hand a piece out to Mwu but then shoved it into his face. Mwu got cream and cake all over his face, and Murrue laughed and said, "Aren't you a messy eater, Mwu. Perhaps I need to feed you myself."

Mwu put on a mock child expression, as the cake splattered off his face onto the floor "Of course I need you to feed me, Captain," he said, a creamy grin on his face. Murrue giggled at Mwu's antics.

"Here, open your mouth," Murrue said as she spooned some cake into his mouth, this time. She took a spoonful of cake for herself. They sat together, finishing the cake, enjoying every moment of each other's company. Afterwards, Murrue got a towel and wiped Mwu's cake-full face clean. "Can't have you looking messy when you leave," she explained, as she put the towel in the wash.

"Murrue…" normally Mwu wouldn't struggle for words but he did, "I want to thank you for helping me through these really hard times. I want to say that I love you more than ever."

"I know that, silly, nothing would change the fact that I love you, for who you are, no matter what I'll stand beside you," Murrue replied. "Though now that you're back on active duty, we won't see each other as much as before, hopefully we can pull some missions together."

"Yeah…I hope so too. And I promise that I won't leave you hanging like last time," Mwu said before they kissed again.

Later, in the pilots lounge, Shinn again sat in the corner, lost in his own thoughts and remembrances. His hand involuntarily went into his pocket and drew out a small pink mobile phone, the one that had belonged to his dead sister. He flipped it open and played the message again. He didn't notice that Stellar had come to sit next to him, "Hey Shinn, what is that?" she asked.

Shinn, oblivious to Stellar didn't answer but put the mobile phone away again, as he turned around he noticed Stellar, "uhh…hello Stellar. What do you want?" he asked, as he saw her take a seat next to him.

"I'm your wingmate, you have to tell me what's wrong, I can feel that something's wrong," Stellar said. "You're really closed off from everyone else, that isn't healthy." Before long, Mwu and Murrue entered and took two mugs of coffee before taking a seat in another corner, away from the public area. Stellar looked over and said to Shinn, "hey, Shinn isn't that Captain La Fllaga, I wonder who the woman is?"

"I don't know," Shinn replied, "but I'm still a bit curious about the Captain, he should be out there flying but he's not. I mean, he is a great pilot. But I get the feeling that he's hiding something."

"Shinn," Stellar chided gently, "whether or not he's hiding something, he's our squadmate and our XO besides; his secret is his to keep and he'll tell whoever he wants to tell, when he wants to tell." She turned around and saw Auel and Rey come in, "Hey, Auel, Rey come over here," she motioned for the two other pilots to come over.

"Hey guys," Shinn managed to say, while the others greeted each other in return. "So what is going on?"

"Shinn, we just learned that you scored the highest on the _Requiem _run," Rey said. Shinn gave a small smile, and managed a small thanks to Rey.

"Who came in second?" Shinn asked, thinking that it would most likely be Heine.

"Lunamaria came in second actually," Auel said.

"What?" Shinn was very surprised, he hadn't heard much about Lunamaria and hadn't imagined that she was that good of a pilot but apparently she was.

"We're all pretty surprised actually," Rey replied, "though I know that Heine must be pretty annoyed right now at being beaten by her."

"Hey, do you guys see the Captain over there," Shinn said, changing the subject, "What do you guys know about him? Have you guys found out anymore?"

"The woman with him, that's Captain Murrue Ramius of the Archangel," Auel answered, "as for anything else, its all rumours but I heard that Captain La Fllaga was captured by the Imps after Jachin Due, and then when she found him again, she brought him back. That's all I know for sure." There was no mistaking which _she_ that Auel was referring to.

"That's such a sad story, if it is true," Stellar said, "look at them, they are so in love."

The four of them heard the door to the pilots lounge open with a whoof, and saw another red haired girl walked in, up to Lunamaria, "Hey sis," the girl said, "how is piloting going?"

"Hey, Meyrin," Lunamaria replied, "It's okay, come, meet some of my fellow pilots, this is Heine and this is Sting."

"Hey guys, it's nice to meet you," Meyrin said, smiling and shaking each of the other pilot's hands. "Who are those guys over there?" Meyrin asked, pointing directly at Shinn, Stellar, Auel and Rey.

"More members of the squad," Lunamaria replied, she gestured for them to come over. "I'd like you guys to meet my sister, Meyrin, she's a crewman of the Archangel," Luna said, "This is Auel, Rey, Shinn and Stellar," she introduced each of them to her sister.

"So is this everyone in the squadron, are there any more pilots?" Meyrin asked, "Most of the other squadrons have twelve."

"Yeah, there's only the seven of us right now, and Commander Waltfeld," Shinn replied, "perhaps more pilots will come later."

"There's also Captain La Fllaga, our XO, but he doesn't fly combat missions." Stellar added.

"Oh! him," Meyrin said, "Around the fleet, especially amongst the crewers, there's a lot of rumours about his past. For instance, there was one guy on the Archangel who said that the Captain had lost his memory but I don't think that's true. The way he and Captain Ramius carry on, its like they're kids or something."

"But this much is true," Meyrin continued, "the Captain is shadowed by a Security Officer everywhere. I don't know why though."

"Meyrin," Luna chided, "Don't gossip like that, it's unbecoming."

"Onee-chan, they want to know, so I'll tell," Meyrin pouted, "And anyway, what I've said is true, he is followed around by Sec."

"But you don't have to go and tell everyone about it," Luna rebuked. Everyone laughed, as they saw the sister's fighting.

"Stop it you guys," Rey said, always the sensible one, "let's just say that there are some things that are left better untouched and leave it at that."


	4. Rogue Squadron Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Rogue Squadron

**_A/N: Well here is Chapter 3, after a long while...sorry guys. Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Anyway enjoy this chappie and then please give feedback._**

The shuttle's pilot looked back over his shoulder, "Agent Campbell, you'll probably want to strap yourself in. We're coming out of hyperspace."

Mia began to fumble with the restraining harness then brought her head up quickly, embarrassed that her lack of coordination betrayed her nervousness. After all, it wasn't everyday that the ruler of the Empire called for a private meeting. "Thank You Lieutenant, but I've done this before."

The ship landed without any glitches, but away from the main buildings. Instead, it landed on a small port surrounded by camouflage. "Here's where you get off, Agent Campbell," the shuttle pilot said.

"Thanks," Mia said, as she alighted and the shuttle blasted off. She looked around and found a small path which she followed, when she got to the end, there was a splendid estate, she saw some red-coats of FAITH, stand guard. One of them ushered her into the house and then into a room. Then, the guard motioned for her to sit, and a tall man with longish black hair and eyes like a fox stepped into the room from another door. _Eyes like a fox…it can't be_.

"You are Mia Campbell aren't you?" the man said.

"Reporting as ordered," Mia replied, saluting, trying to keep the fear from showing on her face.

"Don't look so scared, Agent Campbell. Don't you know who I am?"

"No, sir," she replied.

"I am Gilbert Dullindal, head of the Supreme Council and Imperial Intelligence, I rule here now and I am determined to destroy the Alliance. I believe that you can aid me in that task."

Mia swallowed, hard, "How, sir?" she replied, as she regained some of her composure.

Commander Waltfeld smiled when Admiral Todaka nodded. "I think you'll see, sir, the squadron si coming along quite well, even with only eight pilots."

The Admiral looked up from his datapad on his desk. 'Your performance figures and exercise scores are commendable. Our people are better than some of the operational line units."

"Thank you sir," Commander Waltfeld, replied.

"However, their level of discipline is not that of the front-line units however," the Admiral continued, "but even so, I have an extraordinary request to make of you, Commander."

"Yes, sir," Andy replied.

"I'm making the squadron operational within a week."

"What? It's only been a few weeks since the roster was finalized, sir. Advanced training takes at least a few months. We're not close to combat ready yet, they've only run a few live exercises," Andy argued.

"That's not what your numbers suggest, and you do have your XO to help you," the Admiral replied, in a tone that broached no chance for argument.

"Admiral, I haven't even run any hyperspace navigation runs with them yet," Andy said

"Well then, this should be your first," the Admiral replied, holding up his hand to forestall any arguments, he handed a datapad over to Andy, while he flicked on his computer terminal, the lights dimmed and a representation of a part of space came up. "I will be moving Rogue Squadron from here the December Nineteen colony."

"That's Coreward of here." Andy's expression became one of worry.

Admiral Todaka nodded. 'There has been much debate in the Provisional Council about how we should proceed in the war against the Empire. Much of the debate has been focused on PLANT headquarters. This is one of our first steps in legitimising the government over the others. Warlord Jibril and his new OMNI alliance, seem to be consolidating their holdings with their neighbours, he may make a push towards PLANT headquarters and declare himself ruler in Raww's stead."

"So we have to get there first," Andy replied.

"Or at the very least, appear bent towards that goal, discouraging others from usurping our place in the galaxy," the Admiral continued.

"But you mustn't discount the power of the Supreme Council and Gilbert Dullindal, he is quite dangerous being head of Imperial Intelligence," Andy said. Gilbert Dullindal, had risen to fill the power vacuum left after Raww's death, and he and the Supreme Council he controlled had done a good job of holding the Empire together after Raww had died along with Patrick Zala.

"From December Nineteen, Rogue Squadron will proceed to provide escort to ships pushing even deeper, setting up safe worlds and supply depots. You will be but one unit of many probing the central Imperial defences," the Admiral continued.

"You want to see how hard he'll hit back. Gauge their strength based on speed and the nature of response?"

"Yes, as well as determining supply routes for possible disruption."

That made sense to Andy. Though space provided a limitless number of ways to get from one point to another, some simple rules did govern how and where ships travelled. Therefore, most ships did travel along prescribed routes to avoid anomalies. Disrupting Imperial supply routes would deprive them of materials, but also provide those same materials for the Alliance. Even though they used some different models of mobile suit, other supplies such as rations could be easily employed by both sides.

"Furthermore, the news of the deployment of Rogue Squadron will start to circulate galaxy wide. However, to minimise the possible security risk, we will keep your destination a secret, and your pilots won't know where they will be stationed, nor will the public. This means that your pilots will only be told that they will be going on an extended training exercise. Logistics and Supply Corps staffers have prepared lists of equipment that cover anything your unit might not carry with it on the trip. We have an Imperial shuttle that Captain La Fllaga will use to bring supplies on your journey."

"Nav data will be fed out to my pilots prior to each jump?"

"Exactly. You should give your flight leaders numerous routes for which they will compute navigational solutions, then you choose the appropriate one and have it communicated to your squadron at teach change of course." The Admiral finished giving his orders and saluted. Andy saluted, collected the datapad and exited the office.

Shinn forced himself to relax. Though he was now flying in a tightly controlled flight behind Heine who as Lieutenant was leading the flight. Shinn's mind was in slight disarray, even though Commander Waltfeld had cast the trip as an exercise in astronav and hyperspace jumping, deep down Shinn felt that a lot was being left unsaid. But he had to put those thoughts out of his head,_ following Heine's lead and getting to the end matters._ Though it still irked him a little that Heine was his flight leader, Commander Waltfeld had taken him aside and told him that in military, it was just as important to be able to follow orders as it was to be able to give orders.

Stellar was back starboard whereas Heine and Sting were in lead, to the front and port. His comm. beeped as the new navigation coordinates were put through by Heine, and he engaged the hyperdrive. Halfway through the jump towards December 19 as they were about to pass through the December 31 system, the alert systems beeped, and the automatic safety cutout on the hyperdrive kicked in. The mobile suits burst through an incandescent white wall and into the outer reaches of the December 31 system.

And right in the middle of a running lightfight.

Shinn broke up to starboard, as Heine quickly gave orders to break and to prepare to attack. An Interdictor cruiser sitting in position at the edge of the system with its gravity well projectors switched on could create a hyperspace shadow roughly equivalent to that of a fair-sized star. They were very effective in ambushes.

However, the interdictor wasn't there to trap them. Running from the cruiser was a small freighter. Andy's voice came over the comm., "There are enemy mobile suits, a dozen of them. Engage them, but watch the cruiser's guns. Break by wingpairs."

"Rogue Eight, on me," Shinn commed as Destiny slid forward and readied for combat.

Stellar acknowledged, seeming to betray no nervousness. There was a slight bitter taste in Shinn's mouth which surprised him because he had flown against Imps in real life and endless simulator battles. _Come on pull yourself together, remember there can't be any more tragedies like Mayu, you vowed that when you had the power you would use it to protect those who couldn't protect themselves._ He felt his dead sister's mobile in his pocket for good luck and then swung the Destiny upwards, drawing its beam boomerangs and aimed at the lead enemy GuAIZ.

He watched the HUD change from green to red, and then the beep of a target lock filled the cockpit, Shinn hit the trigger button and the Destiny swung its arm back and threw the beam boomerang, which streaked towards its target. He saw the Gaia transform into its mobile armour mode and fire its long-range cannon at the second GuAIZ. Both enemy mobile suits tried to evade and broke hard to port but the Gaia's cannons scored a direct heat reducing Stellar's target to a heap of smoking metal. Shinn's beam boomerang missed and it came back and the Destiny caught it and switched to its beam rifle.

"Good shot Eight, One enemy GuAIZ down," Shinn said, "cover me I'm going after the mine." Putting the throttle up to full, Shinn swooped the Destiny up and corkscrewed down through a roll that brought him out on the GuAIZ's tail, and triggered a blast from the Destiny's beam rifle, which scored the GuAIZ but failed to destroy it.

The GuAIZ responded by looping down left and then rolling which brought it behind the Destiny. Shinn tired a wide turn to port that opened the distance from the GuAIZ, but still let the Imperial suit slip in behind him. Shinn put the Destiny into another long loop, as the GuAIZ pilot came up fast and flew in a straight line to get quickly to the same point in space where Shinn would get slowly with his loop, Shinn sensing that the pilot had fallen into his trap, tightened his turn considerably and then fired as the GuAIZ shot past. The GuAIZ exploded as the beam rifle fire hit it. He hit his comm. unit, "Eight, report."

"Cover me. Heading is ninety degrees," Stellar's voice came back over the comm..

"I have your wing, Eight." Guiding the stick to the right he saw the Gaia shoot ahead of him and behind another GuAIZ. Stellar's first shots scored the GuAIZ. _Come on Stellar! You almost have it!_

"Seven, Eight, break hard to port, get out of there."

Stellar's compliance with that order brought here across Shinn's line of flight, which caused him to throttle back and go starboard. He levelled out and started to turn to port but he had strayed a bit too close to the enemy cruiser which filled space with green beams.

The Destiny rocked, as it took one of the blasts head on, draining away his phase-shift armour, and then another hit, grazing scoring a hit on the Destiny's arm. The Destiny rocked again, spinning as Shinn tried manoeuvring away as fast as possible, and without phase-shift his Gundam was a sitting duck.

Above and to starboard, he saw the rest of Rogue Squadron unleash their most powerful attacks on the enemy cruiser. The combined effect of that volley, saw the enemy interdictor's phase-shift wear away, and the laminate armour peel in some places. The interdictor brought its nose up to pull itself away from the fight. Shinn cheered in his cockpit. _They've driven it off_.

However he didn't realise that the cruiser was headed back in his direction and the surviving GuAIZ's would be flying his way too, eager to get some sort of revenge.

"Rogue Seven, do you copy."

"I copy," Shinn didn't immediately recognize the voice. "I'm on low power, the phase-shift is gone."

"This is Rogue Null. You have two GuAIZ's coming your way."

"Thanks, Null, burn them down please," Shinn replied, "my sensors are also gone."

"Can't do that , I'll transmit the sensor information to you, clear comm. frequency ten," Captain La Fllaga's voice came over Shinn's comm..

"Done," Shinn said, as his target display went back online and Shinn saw the HUD go red and then fired the beam rifle destroying it. "Lead's gone, Null. Give me the other." The display flickered, and then Shinn turned Destiny around and launched his two beam boomerangs at the remaining GuAIZ and then it exploded in a brilliant flash, blocking the glow of the Interdictor as it went to lightspeed.

"Great shooting, Seven"

"Greater flying, Null. I only fired at them," Shinn replied.

"The kills are yours, Shinn. Three of them – the best today," Captain La Fllaga's voice came back over the comm.

Commander Waltfeld opened a comm. channel to the freighter, which turned out to be carrying a lot materials needed for setting up a base. The Captain of the freighter said that they were supposed to meet someone here for a rendezvous but when they had shown up, the Imperial Interdictor was there, and nothing else. He figured that it was just an Imperial trap and was happy to donate the materials to the Alliance.

After, getting safely to December Nineteen base, Andy ordered the military protocol droid, to help Shinn find repair parts for the Destiny, which was the only mobile suit to have taken significant damage.

Shinn told the droid, "I need a replacement on the left arm armour plate."

"I have downloaded the requisition forms for the part into this datapad," it said, "If you will fill them out along with the incident report, I'll get Captain La Fllaga to review the forms and then pass them onto Commander Waltfeld to sign them off. We'll relay them back to Erica Simmons and she'll get you the parts, should take about one month or so."

Shinn's jaw dropped, "A month or two? Is this the only way to get the replacement part, I'm sure there are enough trashed mobile armours and mobile suits out here, from which the support crew here could weld a new armour plate."

"Good then, sir, I'll put in a form for a general survey to get some parts."

"You're missing the point, Forms and requests mean take time to fill out, without that part, the Destiny is going to get destroyed in combat, which means that I can't fly which will be hell. Just scrounge the part why don't you?" Shinn said, annoyed at the protocol droid.

The droid's head went dark for a moment, then his limbs and head jerked as if he had been struck by lightning. The eyes then lit up again and somehow, changed voice, or so Shinn thought, "Scrounging protocol engaged, sir. I'll have the crew try to get the part from the ground but to be safe I'll put the forms in. You're a pilot and my job is to keep you flying. Consider it done."

"Are you alright?" Shinn asked, worried that something had happened to the droid.

"I'm fine, sir," the left eye of the droid flashed off and on again, "if you have nothing further, I'll get on this right away."

_Did that droid just wink at me_? "Uhh…nothing else, dismissed," Shinn said. The droid turned sharply on his heel and walked away. Shinn stared at it then shivered.

"It's so cold here, Shinn, don't you think so. I thought it would have been warmer."

Shinn spun to find that Stellar was behind him, wrapped up tightly in a flight jacket with the Rogue Squadron crest on sewn on it.

"Yeah, it is." Shinn replied as he fought off a yawn, "I need some sleep, perhaps we can talk later, Stellar."

"mmm…okay," she replied, "see you later then, I think I'll have some sleep too. I'm billeting with Lunamaria, if you wanted to know, you'll find me there. But we'll walk together towards quarters. Come on." Stellar motioned for Shinn to walk with her and they walked together, before separating at the hall and entering their own rooms and then to sleep.

Mia Campbell looked at the Imperial fleet officer who was staring at her. She had come because of the report from the Interdictor that it had been ambushed by Rogue Squadron. It had bought him all the way from PLANT headquarters to December Fifteen. "I want to ask you questions about the ambush."

"I'll help if I'm able, Agent Campbell."

Very well, would you please tell me what happened?" Mia asked.

"We had information that a smuggler running supplies to the Rebels was expected to arrive at December 31 at a particular time, and would be departing after picking up some supplies there. I sent off a probe to monitor the smuggler's situation while I let the interdictor stay on the fringe. When the smuggler started to move, I powered up the Interdictor after doing an intra-system jump," the officer explained.

"Isn't an intra-system jump a bit abnormal?"

"No, it's been used to great effect in some areas, and I was about to disable the freighter when eight mobile suits shot into the system. I deployed my GuAIZ squadron but most of them were destroyed by this squadron. When they deployed all their weapons in one salve and brought the phase-shift to critical levels I had to reinforce it or power down the projectors. I chose the former actions and then went to lightspeed after recovering the remaining GuAIZs."

"So how did you identify them as Rogue Squadron?" Mia asked.

"Communications intercepts use Rogue callsigns, also their squadron was not uniform, it had many different types of mobile suits, though none of the ones from Jachin Due, there were ones that were similar to those used there by Rogue Squadron," the fleet officer replied.

"Your answers have been most satisfactory. I will be staying for a while, if Rogue Squadron is indeed here, I want to be the one that destroys them," Mia said.

"Yes, Agent Campbell," the military officer replied.

Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala in the _Saviour_ again jumped into another secluded system on the Outer Rim. Having followed another lead on their quest to find out more about the mysterious power of SEED and why Emperor Raww had been so intent on destroying it, they disembarked again, this time on a fiery volcano planet, where few inhabitants lived. Having a protocol droid with them helped them a lot when dealing with people who didn't speak the same language as they did.

This time, their questions lead them deep into a cave system, where they saw that a person had made a dwelling in the cave a long time ago, but it was obvious that it had been abandoned ages ago. Feeling dejected, Kira and Athrun on rocks within the cave, when the rock that Kira had sat on suddenly depressed and a small click could be heard elsewhere.

Athrun and Kira both got up, as they traced the source of the click and saw that a small rock had flipped upwards, revealing a box with old datacards. Hopefully, their efforts had now paid off to some small extent. Maybe these had some information on the powers of SEED.

Erica Simmons and her crew on Morgenroete Research Labs laboured over the new designs for the new Alliance mobile suits. The old Astrays and Murasame's had worked well, but sometimes they lacked the firepower to take down enemy capital ships. With the data on Impulse and Strike, they had decided that the best way to combat this problem was to merge the heavy artillery packs of the Impulse and the Strike in such a way so that the current units could use them and then equipping them, as well as developing new types of mobile suit.

Meanwhile, on PLANT headquarters, orbiting around Aprilius, Supreme Chancellor Dullindal looked out and wondered how Agent Campbell was doing. The comm. on his desk beeped, and he saw the report scroll up. _Good, the Minerva is almost done._ Another report came in, this time it was bad. It seemed as if Warlord Jibril and his OMNI alliance had taken a few more systems from him, those Zamazaar units were proving troublesome, he would need to steal some of those and have FAITH engineers upgrade them so that his would be better.

Admiral Todaka, General Kisaka, Lacus and Cagalli again sat through a fiery council meeting, where they again discussed the current plan to push towards Aprilius One. While the Council once again debated the same point again, Cagalli could not help but be distracted by the absence of Athrun, she hoped that they would find some success soon, but she knew the chances were quite small. Emperor Raww had been very thorough. Even though she had only met him once or twice, her father had warned her that he was insane, and would do anything to stay in power, that he would do anything to make sure the galaxy moved the way he wanted it to.

Cagalli snapped to back to attention as that point passed over and a new one came up. _I wonder how the guys are doing…_ she thought as she re-entered the debate.


	5. Rogue Squadron Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – Rogue Squadron

**Thanks for all the reviews: LM, Infinite Freedom, FreedomOverride, DeathZealot and Victor227. I hope you all enjoy this next chapter...and remember to review please!**

In only two weeks, while the official request for the new armour part had languished in red-tape limbo, Rogue Squadron's droid had managed to find the parts needed to make the armour. The Rogue's chief tech, Murdoch had managed to weld the new armour to replace the damaged piece.

Shinn throttled back slightly, matching Stellar's speed, as they were about to jump into hyperspace, in formation behind Heine and Sting. The mission they were about to embark on was a simple escort mission, but the other side, if there would be trying using live-fire. Alliances operatives had been conducting surveys of Core worlds to assess the political climate and determine the strength of Imperial forces protecting them. On one run back towards their operations base, they ran into trouble and had to go to ground at the November Sixteen system. They sank the ship, a modified Imperial customs frigate, in a deep lake and lacked the equipment needed to repair damage that would allow them to move it again.

The Imperials had sent troops down onto the ground. While their reported progress in searching out the Alliance personnel had been slow, they started relatively close to the lake and so the discovery of the ship was only a matter of time. The Alliance had reconciled itself to the loss of the ship and had intended a covert extraction of the operatives, and then the Imperials left the system providing a window for repair and escape.

Andy sent the squadron the coordinates for the trip to the November Sixteen system. To cover the location of their base, the journey would be undertaken in three stages. The first part, a short one would take them to their first transit point, an uninhabited star near the December Nineteen system. From there they would jump back out Rimward to the second transit system and then back in to November Sixteen.

While multiple jumps and changes of directions would add hours to the flight time, obscuring their points of origin was vital. The Alliance had learned that spreading out forces meant it was all but impossible to for the Empire to land a deathblow to the Allaince. Orb had been too easily targeted during the Civil War.

They made the first jump on Andy's mark and came out in the fringes of the transit system all I one piece. The mobile suits manoeuvred around to the exit vector quickly, then had to mark time as the escort ships came about. The larger ships reported that they were ready, so the whole convoy shot into hyperspace and came out at the second transit system intact. The course adjustment wasn't as big this time, so they headed out quickly and arrived in the November Sixteen system just outside its gravitational tug.

Shinn heard Mwu's voice come through the comm. "You're clear for your run."

"Copy, Control. Two Flight, you're on patrol, watch our backs," Andy's voice came through the comm. as One Flight and some Astrays equipped with the new Blast packs escorted the freighter to pick up the personnel on planet and also strafe some of the enemy ground troops. While strafing ground troops wasn't much in the action department, it was more than just watching and shooting nothing.

Suddenly, Mwu's voice cut through the comm. channel, "Control to all mobile suit pilots. We have an enemy cruiser in system. Seems to be only a small carrier, but they are launching their own mobile suits."

"Two Flight, prepare to attack," Heine's voice came through the comm., "Come to a heading of 275 degrees."

"Control here. I have thirty six enemy mobile suits launched. Six Goufs, six Babis and twenty four CGUEs. Beginning evasive manoeuvres. Wait. Confirm, Babis are heading towards the ground."

"We copy control," Andrew's voice came over through strong despite being nibbled upon by static. He ordered the flight of Blast Astrays to take care of the bombers, as the heavy Blast pack would make them unsuitable against the faster Goufs and CGUEs. "Everyone else, take out the Goufs and CGUEs. Keep them off our escort."

As Heine ordered Two Flight forward, Shinn put the Destiny in a move that put it into a lopsided corkscrew motion. While that made it almost impossible to hit anything, it also made it hard for him to be hit, at least until One Flight got here. As Two Flight penetrated the Imperial formation, he drew his beam saber and slashed at the enemy. He was rewarded with the explosion of one of the enemy CGUEs.

Stellar, seeing Shinn draw his beam saber did the same and lashed out at one of the enemy Goufs with her beam saber. The Gouf exploded, as she inverted and then looped around, which brought the other enemy mobile suits in front of her. She headed back in again and picked up on a CGUE that had broken right while its wingmate had gone left. She saw that Shinn was after that CGUE. The other CGUE executed a loop designed to bring it onto Shinn's aft.

Stellar's beam saber shredded the CGUE's right engines and blew apart its right arm. The other engine, still operating at full power, sent the CGUE spinning away. Stellar winced in sympathy for the pilot who would be spinning around uncontrollably-ready to hurl, then drove again into the enemy formation.

Rogue Squadrron's plunging and wheeling though the middle of the enemy mobile suits had an unanticipated advantage in that they had a very high target-to-comrade ratio to shoot at. Moreover, since they had phase-shift armour, even a shot taken in haste at another Rogue wouldn't prove fatal. The same could not be said of the enemy suits – one misfired missile or beam could easily kill a fellow pilot.

Shinn snapped off a shot at a CGUE and watched it disintegrate. A warning from the console and he sent the Destiny into another move, sending it out of a Goufs line of fire. He turned the Destiny around and fired at the Gouf and watched it explode.

"Seven, break left."

Without thinking Shinn sent the Destiny in a quick move in that direction and caught sight of an enemy Gouf's rod shoot through where he had just been. Some beam rifle fire came along that same line and something exploded out there.

"Thanks Commander."

"No problem, Seven."

The Destiny dove down to say clear of the mass of mobile suits. With the arrival of the rest of the squadron he knew there was no way he could track all the mobile suits and sort friend from foe. Even as he came back up he saw less beam fire permeating the cloud of mobile suits than there had been when the forces were less evenly matched. _So much twisting and turning going on in there, no one can find a target and stick with it long enough to dust it._

Pulling up to continue his loop around the fringe of the battle he saw the Abyss break free with a CGUE on its tail. Measuring Auel's line of flight, Shinn rolled the Destiny and looped down at a tangent to it. "Rogue Three, break hard to star."

The Abyss rolled on right and pulled away at an angle that case doubt on the existence of inertia. The CGUE following tried to imitate his move, but neither the pilot nor the craft were up to it. As the CGUE rolled, Shinn swooped and stabbed its beam saber right into the middle of the CGUE, sending wreckage into the space around him, "You owe me one, Three," Shinn quickly commed.

Seeing another CGUE loop around to attack Shinn, Auel pulled around and centred in on the enemy, as its shoulder opened up, two beams from its shoulders fired, shredding the enemy CGUE to pieces. "Now we're even," Auel commed back.

Lunamaria centred on one of the CGUEs, which looped and started back at her. _Head to head_ – _this pilot knows what he's doing._ As Andrew and Mwu had pointed out plenty of times in training, the majority of kills took place in head-to-head engagements. _Luckily, I also know_.

Lunamaria drove straight in towards the enemy CGUE. The crosshairs went green as she got a target lock and fired, but couldn't see how much damage she'd done because she of the enemy beam fire hitting her shield. She kicked the Impulse into a move which brought her around a full 180 degrees. As she killed her momentum she fired the missiles in the Blast pack that the Impulse had been equipped with (_a/n: I am chopping and changing parts of Impulse's packs together so she can use armaments from any pack at any time_). She watched the missiles shred away the enemy CGUEs engine sending it crashing into the edge of the atmosphere of the November Sixteen system, and impact at that quick speed proved devastating as the CGUE wobbled and then exploded.

The freighter on the ground reported in, as Shinn heard Mwu's voice over the comm.. "Mission accomplished, Rogue Leader."

"I heard that Control. Rogues, regroup for egress. Flight leaders check for your flights."

"Control to Rogue Leader, I have twelve friendly mobile suits and two enemy CGUEs on recovery vectors and two deployed shuttles on pilot recovery missions."

"Let's head home, people," he heard Andy's voice over the comm. as the Alliance task force departed into hyperspace.

When the squadron had returned to the December Nineteen system base, the squadron was ordered to a debriefing session. The pilots took their seats in the small briefing theatre, and Commander Waltfeld took his position at the lectern, he began to speak, "Congratulations, we made it through the first official live-fire mission without a hitch, and our operatives are all safe. Good job, Two Flight in keeping the enemy off our carrier until we could get there. The tech crew should be finalising repairs to the units right about now. Dismissed."

With that, Commander Waltfeld saluted and the pilots saluted back and he strode out of the room, followed by Captain La Fllaga. The other pilots then left and went to the pilot's lounge.

Once in the pilots lounge, they mingled with the other pilots from the base and Shinn fell into conversation with one of the pilots of the Blast Astrays. "You guys did a good job out there today," the pilot said.

"Thanks," Shinn replied, smiling. "But you guys did well too, taking down those Babis and protecting the freighter picking up our people and slagging the enemy ground troops. Besides, it is just our job. That doesn't of course; diminish my pleasure in burning Imps."

"Yeah, I know, Emperor Raww was one hell of a tyrant, I hated the fact that he destroyed innocent planets like Heliopolis," the pilot said.

"Well, he's dead, though the people in his place are almost just as bad, though not quite as insane, they would probably do ridiculous things like repeat Heliopolis just to stay in power," Shinn answered.

"You're right, and that's why we have to fight, to prevent the innocent's from getting hurt, because somewhere out there, someone will be thanking us for every Imp we take out," the pilot said. _That's sort of how I feel, that every Imp I take out, some person out there won't have to go through what I did._ "You want a drink?" the pilot asked, as the bartender came up to them.

"I'll have a synthjuice thanks," Shinn replied, as the pilot ordered some ale for himself. "You don't drink?" he asked.

"Nah, I don't, too young for it, I'm only sixteen," Shinn replied, as the bartender laid out the glass of synthjuice in front of him.

"You're only sixteen? Oh sorry, then, perhaps when you're older then. The ale here's very good," the pilot replied.

"I'll remember that," Shinn replied, giving the pilot a rare smile. He felt much more at ease now, more than ever before since he had been orphaned and had lost his sister. _Perhaps this is the place where I'll find something new, somewhere where I can move on._

"Shinn, come over here," Shinn heard Stellar call, as some of the other pilots were settled around one of the tables in the bar.

"Hey, looks like your friend's calling, I'll talk to you later," the pilot said as he finished his drink and left, waving goodbye. Shinn went over to where the others were gathered. He took his seat in between Stellar and Rey and they began to celebrate the success of their first mission.

"Hey, Shinn, who were you talking to over there before," Rey asked.

"Oh…he was one of the Blast Astray pilots, he bought me a synthjuice, we talked a little about the mission and about other things. But he had to leave," Shinn replied, "I think they're going on some escort run soon."

"Well, anyway, lets celebrate dusting those Imps and getting our people safely home," Auel said, from across the table, as they each took a drink from their cups. It wasn't much later when they saw Commander Waltfeld and Captain La Fllaga walk in, and order some ale from the bartender.

"Commander, Captain," Stellar called, waving them over, "Come over here and join us for a drink." Andy and Mwu brought their drinks over, and joined the pilots at the table, "so how is the celebration going, guys?" Andy asked, as they sat down in the chairs that they had pulled from the adjoining empty table.

"Fine," Stellar replied, "So Captain, how many kills did we get today?"

"Twenty-eight out of a possible thirty," Mwu replied, smiling, "you guys all did really great, and you got all of the Goufs too."

"I mean individually, Captain," Stellar said.

"Oh, well I don't think that I should say anything about that. Can't let you guys get too cocky," Mwu replied, wanting to put them off from inquiring further.

"Commander," all the pilots complained in unison.

"Ehh…, Mwu, perhaps you should tell them," Andy said, exasperated, "I don't want to have them whining all through the next mission briefing and then trying to count how many kills they have while they are piloting," before taking another swig of ale.

"Okay, Commander, but just because you ordered it, not because they were so effective at whining," Mwu replied, the big grin on his face highlighting the joke. The pilots were all up to their form, as they said again in unison, "Commander, the Captain is picking on us." All of them laughed at the absurdity of the scene.

When the laughter had died down a bit, Mwu spoke, "I suppose so, aright then." He told each of the pilots present the amount of kills they had in the last mission. The looks that passed through their faces mirrored their pleasure of having taken down a superior number of enemies, without any losses.

The door to the pilots lounge opened and in stepped, to everyone's surprise, Meyrin. "Hey Meyrin, come over and join us for a drink," Auel said, waving her over. Meyrin hesitated, seeing that Rogue Squadron's senior officers were there too, but decided to walk over and not let her discomfort at being surrounded by pilots show. Years ago, she had wanted to be a mobile suit pilot, but her parents had forbidden it, and she hadn't really tested out that great anyway, and she was good at her job. But that didn't stop her from envying her sister and mobile suit pilots. Auel pulled a chair from the next table for her, as she sat down next to him and Stellar.

"Hey guys," Meyrin said, "How was your mission, from what I heard, Command is very impressed. I just dropped by with some more supplies for the base."

Dearka and Yzak met each other after a very hard day training new pilots. The new squadrons which they were training were very important in the war against the Empire and the Warlords. While Dearka's girlfriend, Miriallia was occupied with Intelligence work, Yzak's girlfriend Shiho was a pilot in an active squadron on the front lines. After class, they would meet together to compare notes on the new trainees and their progress and how long before another squadron would be ready for active duty.

Today, they met inside Yzak's office. As they both took some of their coffee, Dearka remarked, "I think that our next batch of students are ready to graduate and take the advanced training and then be assigned to the front lines."

"Yes, I agree, they'll be sent to one of the safe bases, where they'll learn their advanced skills and actually be assigned their own mobile suits," Yzak replied, "I hear that our new squadrons may get the new model Murasame's."

"That would give the novices an extra edge, and hopefully increase their survivability," Dearka commented. (_A/N:_ I will phase-shift all the Alliance mobile suits) "Not that we don't train them well enough," he hastily added as Yzak gave him a hard look.

"Don't you find it frustrating that we're here, babysitting trainees, while the others are out there on the front lines fighting. I mean, your girlfriend is probably in deep cover on some Imperial planet, while mine is in the frontline, helping in the effort to take PLANT headquarters," Yzak said, as he sipped more of his coffee.

"Uhh…well sometimes I do, but we're doing an important job too, without the next generation of pilots, we'd lose, that's how I see it, and they need to be trained well enough to survive against superior numbers. And who else out there would train the new pilots as well as us?" Dearka replied, hoping that it would put Yzak's mind at rest. "The new models seem interesting, looks like they are adapting the Impulse's and Strike's multiple weapons packs to the Murasame's and Astrays. Chief Simmons is very good at what she does, don't you think?" Dearka asked, changing the subject.

"Yes, she is, I wonder what other new surprises she has in store for the Empire. She's better than any of the weapons designers they have right now," Yzak answered. Enjoying the rest of the coffee, they returned to their own quarters to prepare the next day's lessons.

Meanwhile, back on December Nineteen, Meyrin had left with the supply ship not long after, and Rogue Squadron was back to training, and getting ready to fly the next mission. After a particularly, long exhausting training mission in the simulators in which One Flight had gone up against Two Flight in an intense melee battle, while capital ships also fired _Lohengrin-class _and _Gottfried-class_ cannons at them, Shinn and Stellar found themselves alone, while the others had gone to the refreshers, or continued to practice, in Lunamaria's case.

"Shinn…" Stellar repeated trying to get Shinn's attention. Apparently his mind had wandered off somewhere, as it was somehow prone to do when he wasn't in combat.

"Oh, Stellar, yes?" Shinn replied, looking up. Indeed he had been lost in his reflections again, but this time it wasn't because of his sister or his dead parents, it was because of Stellar. He thought that she looked so beautiful. In fact, he had had a crush on her since the day they met. But he didn't know what to say to her.

"Don't you think that it's really nice that we're here, alone right now?" he heard Stellar say, his mind started to melt as he felt Stellar snuggle up closer to him, _what am I going to do?_ Shinn put his arm around Stellar. "It's really cold, isn't it?" Stellar said, wishing Shinn would get the numerous hints that she sent him.

Shinn's mind continued to go all over the place, as Stellar snuggled up closer, he started to feel a little uncomfortable. It had been quite a while since he had gotten close to anyone since his family had died. Not that Stellar wasn't a good person or anything, it was just that he didn't want to go through having another person he cared about deeply to die. She was a casual friend and a squadron member but only that, nothing more. He couldn't bring himself to become close with people anymore because they died and left him alone. In his mind it was okay to have friends but not to have close friends, in his mind he was afraid that they would die. Of course, he would never show that to the others. Shinn unconsciously withdrew his arm from around Stellar and sat lost in his thoughts.


End file.
